Archbishop Leighton: Bp. Hopkins.

"If you find your hearts unclean, your hands idle and unprofitable, your ways crooked and unholy, your corruptions alive and lively, never pretend to any renewing: your are the old men still; and however you may go for christians, yet ye have denied the power of christianity in your lives, and if ye so continue, the fire of hell shall have so much the more power over you, for that it finds the baptismal water upon your faces."**

Archbishop Leighton, who died in 1684, says:

"Our adoption is not a mere extrinsical denomination, as an adoption among men; but is accompanied with a real change in those that are adopted-a new nature and spirit being infused into them, by reason of which, they are likewise begotten of God, and born again by the supernatural work of regeneration. They are like their heavenly Father; they have his image renewed in their souls. They have their Father's spirit, and are actuated and led by it. This is the great mystery of the kingdom of God, which puzzled Nicodemus; it was darkness to him at first, till he was instructed in that night, under the covert whereof he came to Christ.

"This adoption is sometimes ascribed to subordinate means; to baptism, called therefore the laver of regeneration. Tit. 3. 5. &c. But all these means have their vigor and efficacy in this great work, from the Father of Spirits, who is their Father in their first creation and infusion, and in this their regeneration, which is a new and second creation. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature."†

Bishop Hopkins, who died in 1690, remarks:

"There is an external, relative, or ecclesiastical sanctification, which is nothing else but the devoting or giving up of a thing or person unto God, by those who have power so to do: And also there is an internal, real and spiritual sanctification, and in this sense, a man is said to be sanctified, when the Holy Ghost doth infuse into his soul the habits of divine grace, and maketh him partaker of the divine nature, whereby he is inwardly qualified to glorify God in a holy life-Baptism is the immediate means of our external and relative sanctification unto God. The sanctification, regeneration, and adop

*Bishop Hall's Works, vol. v. Sermon xx. p. 296.

+ Leighton's Works, vol. 1. p. 129.

Bishop Burnet: Bishop Bradford.

tion, conferred upon us at our admission into the visible Church is external and ecclesiastical." And again :

66 Baptism is not so much the means of internal and real sanctification, as if all to whom it is administered were thereby spiritually renewed, and made partakers of the Holy Ghost in his saving grace."

To baptized persons, who were living in impenitence, he addressed this language: "What! shall your names be in the register of Christ, and yet your souls be in the hands of the Devil? Will you carry his ensign in your forehead, and yet fight against him in his own camp? This is not only hostility, but treason: and as rebels and traitors are more severey dealt with than enemies, so shall you be; and believe it, the flames of hell burn the more furiously, for your being sprinkled with baptismal water."*

Bishop Burnet, who died 1715, says:

"We look on all sacramental actions as acceptable to God, only with regard to the temper, and the inward acts of the person to whom they are applied, and cannot consider them. as medicines, or charms, which work by a virtue of their own, whether the person to whom they are applied, co-operates with them or not."+

Bishop Bradford, who died 1731, remarks:

"It is the way of the scriptures to speak to, and of, the vis ible members of the Church of Christ under such appellations and expressions as may seem at first hearing to imply that they are all of them truly righteous and holy persons. Thus the Apostles style those to whom they write, in general "saints"; speak of them as "sanctified in Christ Jesus, chosen of God, buried with Christ in baptism, risen again with him from the dead, sitting with him in heavenly places, saved by the washing of regeneration." The reason of which is; that they were visibly by obligation, and by profes sion all this, which was thus represented to them, the more effectually to stir them up, and engage them to live according to their profession and obligation. But yet it is too evident from divers passages in their writings, and experience has

* See Bishop Hopkins' Works, vol. 2, pp. 418, 426. Also, Christian Observer, vol. 14, p. 588.

+ Bishop Burnet on the 39 Articles.

Archbishop Secker: Dean of Chichester.

confirmed to us the same thing, that both in their times and ever since, there have been many who have enjoyed 'the washing of regeneration' (or baptism,) whose tempers and manners have demonstrated that they were not also ‘renewed by the Holy Ghost.'

"What St. Paul says of the Jews may be repeated with respect to christians also, with a little variation of the words:

“He is not a christian which is one outwardly, neither is that regeneration (namely, such as will be effectual to salvation) which is outward in the flesh; but he is a christian which is one inwardly: and regeneration is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God.'

"God will not accept of men on account of their having complied with some external and ritual institutions, while they have no regard to the design of them. The institutions of Christ do not work like charms, but being appointed to be used by reasonable creatures, there is a disposition of mind in the person using them, necessary to the rendering them effectual.*

Archbishop Secker, who died 1768, remarks:

"When it is said that the sacraments, (Baptism and the Lord's Supper,) are means of grace, we are not to understand either that the performance of the mere outward action doth, by its own virtue, produce a spiritual effect in us; or that God hath annexed any such effect to that alone: but that he will accompany the action with his blessing, provided it be done as it ought; with those qualifications which he requires."†

It would be easy to extend these quotations from the writings of the more modern English Divines, but I will add nothing farther, except the remark of the Dean of Chichester, who, in England, in 1817, was regarded as one of the staunchest advocates for baptismal regeneration. He remarks:

"The inseparability of baptism and regeneration is a doctrine falsely ascribed to the clergy. No minister of the Episcopal Church ever did, or ever could really assert it. This doctrine is a foolish and papistical superstition."+

* A Discourse published by the Society for promoting Christian knowledge.

+Secker's Works, vol. IV. p, 416.

This is given as the substance of the Dean's remark, in the 16th vol. of Christian Observer, p. 391.

Bishop Hobart: Bp. H. U. Onderdonk.

To these English testimonies, I will subjoin three or four from American Bishops.

The Rt. Rev. J. H. Hobart, D. D. late Bishop of New York, remarks:

"In the offices of Baptism and also in that of Confirmation, the terms regenerate and born again are applied to those who are baptized. And this circumstance has given rise to the unfounded opinion that the Church does not maintain the necessity of any spiritual change, but that which takes place in baptism. It appears, however, from these very offices, that the Church does most strenuously insist, in the case of those who are baptized, on that renewing of the mind,' or that renewing of the Holy Ghost,' to which in modern times, the term regeneration is applied. The scriptural application of this term is to baptism. Thus the Apostle speaks of the washing of regeneration,' evidently meaning baptism, and as a distinct operation, 'the renewing of the Holy Ghost.' Regeneration is always applied in the writings of the first ages of the christian church to baptism; and a different construction of this term in modern times, to denote a change of heart and life, has given rise to very erroneous opinions as to the view of the church on this important subject. By regeneration, she means a change of state, from our natural state in which we have no title to the blessings of the gospel covenant, to a state of grace or salvation in the christian church, in which we have a title, on the conditions or qualifications of repentance and faith, and evangelical obedience, to the privilege of pardon and grace, and eternal life which Christ purchased for his mystical body.""*

In relation to the Bishop's theory, as to the meaning of the term regeneration, we at present have nothing to do. The purpose for which we have introduced this quotation is to show, that those Episcopalians who embrace the idea of a baptismal regeneration, mean by this something quite different from a change of heart-and that they most distinctly and steadily avow their belief in the necessity of this internal and spiritual change.

Bishop Onderdonk of Pennsylvania, who adopts the theory of two distinct regenerations, the baptismal and the moral, # Companion for the book of Common Prayer.

M

Views of Bp. Griswold on Regeneration.

'most explicitly warns the careless member of the church, that his baptism does not imply, that he has the new heart in any degree whatever, or in any whatever of its elements."*

Bishop Griswold takes another view of the meaning of the term regenerate, but most strenuously insists upon the necessity of a change of heart, which may take place at, before, or after baptism. His remarks which follow, we are confident will throw additional light upon this subject.

“What we ought precisely to understand by the word regeneration, has been of late years much controverted. Among Christians, even the most learned, there is a diversity of opinion respecting a correct use of this word. Some view regen. eration as having no connection with baptism, as the com mencement of sanctification; in their view it is the change of the heart. The Scriptures, we know, teach nothing more clearly than that the heart must be renewed, created again unto good works; and this must unquestionably be the work of God's Spirit. None can with any reason pretend that this is effected by the washing of water. But they who hold to this spiritual regeneration may differ but little except in the use of words from others, who, by regeneration, understand the change of state which is effected by baptism. It is to be regretted that there should be a verbal difference among Christians on this point. It causes uncharitable disputation, and the appearance of great difference in doctrine, even where little or none exists. It has also caused a misunderstanding of the language of our liturgy. Some infer from it, that we believe in no necessary change of heart, but what is effected in baptism; and others, that no baptized person, though ever so wicked, can with propriety, be addressed as unregenerate.

In my view of this subject, it is by divine wisdom so ordered, that the sacrament which admits us into the Church and covenant with God, symbolizes or represents this new birth. Baptism strictly speaking is not regeneration; it is rather a sacramental representation of the new birth. But it is natural, and it is authorized in the figurative use of words to speak of this sacrament as being what it signifies or represents. It in time became common to speak of a baptized person as being regenerate, or born again. Sacramentally, baptized persons may be said to be new creatures; they have professed faith * Onderdonk on Regeneration, p. 12.